Highly intelligent, capable people are used to getting results.

They outwork and outthink most people around them. The results speak for themselves. They excel at seeing the bigger picture and they often work not only for personal recognition, but for the prosperity of the organisation they operate within.

These are high-energy individuals, unafraid of responsibility, who enjoy solving problems. They do more than expected and they do not stop until something works. They want to win, and most times, they do.

Ambitious, confident, decisive leaders are common traits at this level.

So why does this eventually become a problem?

Because at some point, a leader continues to rely on a version of themselves that was once successful and slowly stops picking up the new signifiers. Or they see them, but they do not take them seriously. They have overcome before. They will overcome again.

They are so used to getting it right through effort, competence, and familiarity that they instinctively attack new landscapes with the same weapons. The people around them rarely challenge it. Sometimes out of fear. Sometimes out of blind trust. Sometimes because questioning success feels risky.

And to be clear, these have not suddenly become weak leaders.

They are simply operating on a new playing field where old drivers no longer work. This is a new era. They have entered a new season of leadership, but their internal authority has not caught up.

Inside, they sense something is off, but they avoid facing it because it threatens everything they have come to be identified with. They are deeply committed to outdated versions of success.

So they convince themselves the new challenge can be solved with the old strategy.

This is where perception narrows.

They believe the missing ingredient is to press harder on the gas. Raise the stakes. Do more of the same. Throw more resources at the existing strategy. Surely progress will resume.

It rarely does.

And this is where it gets costly.

Because you start seeing leaders who refuse to change and still expect the environment to reward them.

When honestly acknowledging new data, and the cost of making an unfamiliar decision starts to feel unusually heavy, that is often the signal. Even while pushing, internally, momentum dips. Enthusiasm drops. Teamwork fragments. Senior leaders can see the issues but keep moving in old ways, avoiding what is challenging their conviction. So you go through the motions, assuming you can keep winning, yet unable to commit to doing something fundamentally different.

This is identity protection at its core.

Leaders stall because moving in a new direction would require letting go of the version of themselves that once worked.

And this is where organisations pay the price.

Again, the issue is never the leader’s capability. It is an internal authority problem.

At senior levels, leadership does not break because people do not know what to do. It breaks because responsibility has increased faster than internal permission to act. Leaders are still deciding from an identity that belonged to an earlier version of themselves. One that once worked. One that once kept them safe. But no longer fits.

This is authority lag.

Until it is addressed, decisiveness erodes, no matter how intelligent, experienced, or committed the leader is.

Deep down, many leaders can see the next move. They may even talk it through with people who are less attached to the outcome. But when it comes to deciding, they hesitate. They seek consensus. They wait for validation. They refine and readdress, work harder and ignore what they already know.

These visionaries hesitate because the new decision makes them feel like they will be standing alone.

They fear failing.
They fear being perceived as weak.
They fear losing status.
They fear losing reverence.
Ultimately, they fear stepping out of the identity that once defined them.

So instead of leaning into authority, leaders keep refining old moves and minimising risk. They forget that at the beginning of something new, uncertainty and the possibility of failure are not weaknesses. They are requirements.

You have to get it wrong to learn quickly.
You have to risk to build something new.
You have to be sure of your authority.

What is needed here is not more effort.

It is restraint.
Calculated restraint.

The ability to pause, reassess, and allow internal authority to update instead of doubling down on outdated drivers.

This problem almost always appears after success. After identity has hardened around being the one who gets it right by doing things a certain way. Radical change feels threatening because it destabilises what once made you effective.

Internal authority begins to lag because it now seeks external permission.

When leaders cannot stand on radical decisions in a new playing field, they delay. They soften language. They introduce complexity. They hold back.

This is not about force.
It is not about persuasion.

It is about recognising your capacity to operate at the level you are now in, not the level that formed you.

The resolution is not more confidence.
It is not harder work.
It is not external approval.

The resolution is allowing identity to catch up with responsibility and accepting that the parameters have changed.

Until that happens, intelligibility will continue to fade and the organisation itself will begin to decline through stalled decisions, diluted accountability, and execution that no longer holds.